With 48pc of the population now overweight, it’s time to get active and eat right
Summer is coming to a close and just like the grizzly or black bear who has hibernated over the winter and is returning to the wilderness, people everywhere are starting to return to gyms after their summer vacation.
The bears have eaten large amounts of food and moved very little during their hibernation period, thereby adding body fat. The situation is the same for people, following their period of inactivity.
Research carried out by insurer Hibernian Aviva Health suggests that 48pc of people in Ireland are overweight or dangerously overweight.
There was a clear gender bias to these results, with 61pc of males versus 39pc of females reportedly being overweight. The research also highlighted that, on average, 24pc of the adult population do no exercise or physical activity at all and this increases the risk of heart disease and colon cancer.
The Irish Heart Foundation confirms that heart disease is the number one killer in Ireland, with approximately 10,000 people dying each year from cardiovascular disease.
Where your body stores fat is linked to your risk of heart disease. Fat around your love handles and mid-section is known as central obesity fat and this can pose the biggest problem for heart disease. If your waist circumference is larger than 32 inches/80cm, for a woman, or 37 inches/94cm for a man, it is recommended that you should consider a weight-loss programme immediately.
Commenting on the results of the online survey, Dr Stephen Murphy said: “It is in heart health where some of the biggest health gains can be realised. Regular exercise, in conjunction with a healthy diet from a young age, will have a huge benefit on your health in later years and it is never too late to start a healthier approach to life.”
I applaud Hibernian for raising awareness of this issue but the advice they offered to remedy the obesity bulge in Ireland leaves a lot to be desired.
The Get Active Ireland website suggests that we should take at least 30 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity five days a week, such as brisk walking, water aerobics, ballroom dancing, general gardening or brisk vacuum cleaning!
In my years of seeking guidance off world-renowned medical experts in fat loss, I have yet to see clients using the Nilfisk 90 as the number-one tool for fat loss.
The nutritional advice suggests that you follow the food pyramid, which includes six servings of breads and cereals, five portions of fruit and vegetables, three servings of dairy products and two servings of meat, fish, poultry, eggs or pulses. They should avoid high-fat snacks and alcohol should be used in moderation and preferably during meal times.
It is by following the food pyramid that you will resemble the shape of a pyramid, increasing your central obesity so much that you will soon require a health insurance policy.
Processed grains or cereals should never go before fresh fruits and vegetables. Six servings of breads and cereals will raise triglycerides, which affect your body’s ability to regulate cholesterol which is used as a health marker for heart disease.
In addition to this, Ireland has one of the highest rates of coeliac disease, or sensitivity to gluten. Symptoms include bloating, inflammation and low energy.
The food pyramid was designed to contain guidelines on foods and quantities to eat to help nations obtain the RDA (recommended daily allowance) of nutrients to prevent disease for “practically all healthy persons based on the average man or woman”.
Now the questions remain — who wants to be average and who is healthy? Forty-eight per cent are obese, and what are the percentages of cancer and diabetes in this country?
Deficiencies
The RDA guidelines are like lowest common denominator nutrition. To compound matters, approximately only one in 25 people get the recommended five servings of vitamin-rich fruits and vegetables. Indeed, Donald Rudin, author of The Omega- 3 Phenomenon, claims that evidence indicates that long-term nutrient deficiencies from our diet may actually be associated with the development of degenerative diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
We also need to learn to push ourselves away from the table sooner. We are conditioned to think that we must keep eating until a plate is empty. An experiment called the ‘never ending bowl of soup study’ analysed participants as they kept eating from the bowl as a tube kept filling up the bowl from underneath the table. The participants didn’t stop when they were full but were continuing until the bowl was empty, which never happened, so they over-ate.
The reality is that we always count our hits in nutrition but we forget our misses. We see no evil and hear no evil. We may eat two good meals and eat three bad ones and we also need to estimate the size of a serving.
If your goal is fat loss, you need to eat every two to four hours and to include lean protein in each meal with vegetables. If you do not eat any servings of fruit and vegetables at breakfast or lunch, will you eat over five servings at dinner time?
This is what applied nutrition is all about — you can’t save it till the end of the day and you must include healthy fats like omega 3s, avocados, mixed nuts, seeds and olive oil.
The option to change is yours. You have never eaten anything by accident. You can decide whether you want to dig your own grave with a knife and fork or stick to the 10,000-year-old rule of fresh fish, meats, vegetables, berries and nuts. Your liver will thank you for it.
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